Slayerz
by Mediancat
Summary: Dana was damaged. Faith had issues. What if someone even more mentally unstable was "ready to be strong"?
1. Directions to Handelman Street

Author's Note: Just jigger the timelines a bit so that post season 7 Buffy coincides with the Nina Cassady season of Law & Order, and so that Jenny is 18 at this point. Yes, this is a crossover, even though no Buffy characters appear in the this part.

Also, hi! Yes, I'm still alive, and I will get back to Martian Manhunter, I promise.

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf created Law & Order, and Joss Whedon created Buffy. "Jenny" originally appeared in the L&O episode "Killerz."

X X X X X

Jenny smiled.

She didn't know where this new strength had come from, but it was useful. Months back, not long before she finally got out of juvie -- "I'll never do it again," she'd told the psychiatrist. "It was a stupid phase I was going through. It was wrong and I'm very sorry. I wrote this letter for the boy's family. I'd hope you see that it gets to them."

The psychiatrist had been convinced, but then, most psychiatrists were stupid and easily convinced. There was only that one back when she was on trial -- Skoda. And he wasn't working for New York anymore. It had been so easy to find out. "I'm afraid of him," she'd said. And the dumb doctor had found it our for her.

She bided her time. Kept her strength hidden. As well as the urges she had to roam around at night killing things.

And now her records were sealed, she had a good job working as an auto mechanic (juvie provided vocational training. Turned out she had an aptitude for using tools. Who knew?), and she didn't even have to deal with a halfway house.

And then she'd heard the voice. "Are you ready to be strong?"

Damn right, she was ready to be strong.

No more dealing with little boys. Now it was time to take on men.

She hated men.

She didn't like women, much, either. But she didn't want to kill any of them.

Men deserved to die.

No more luring, no more having to take them from behind.

Now she could just grab them.

Want, take, have.

The fact that she'd grown up to be a fairly attractive woman in the last seven years helped. 5'5", long, wavy reddish brown hair, not that she cared about sex, really, but she'd seen enough magazines to know what men found attractive.

Men were so gullible.

"Excuse me, sir?" she said. "I'm lost. Could you tell me where Handelman Street is?"

X X X X X

Jay Kendall looked at his friend Vic. "Vic, look," he said. "I got no problems with you bein' an Orioles fan. I'm just sayin' you might wanna keep it hidden when we're actually at Yankee Stadium."

Vic Canelli laughed. "A real fan roots for their team no matter what," he said as they turned a corner.

"Well, all I'm sayin' is, it's a good thing you're built like a pro wrestler, 'cause otherwise you woulda got your clock cleaned tonight. Especially after the O's pulled off that big rally in the ninth." He shook his head. "Damn Riviera. I think his time is done. Three runs. Three damn runs."

"I'm telling you, that kid Markakis is a real -- what's that?"

"What's what?"

"Over there in the alley." Vic walked over to the mouth of the alley. When he came back, he was pale. "Call the cops."

"What --"

"Call the fucking cops!" he yelled.

X X X X X

"Good god," Nina Cassady said. The body in the alley was naked and badly battered. It didn't look like a single square inch of the man's body had escaped bruising.

"That was my reaction," Ed Green said. They were both detectives, and even though Nina was a comparative rookie, she went out of her way to prove she was as hard as anyone; though the job got to them occasionally, they didn't show it often. But this -- this was obscene.

"Who called it in?" Cassady said.

"Those guys over there," Green said, pointing to two men wearing baseball caps, one of whom had to be a good six and a half feet tall.

"Is that an Orioles cap he has on?" Cassady said.

"Yeah."

"He's lucky he's not the dead one."

X X X X X

The next morning, Green and Cassady were talking to Lt. Anita Van Buren. "And you're sure it wasn't this weightlifter type?" she asked.

"He's got about five hundred witnesses," Green said. "The entire section was ticked at the dude with the Orioles cap. Unless he can teleport, I'd say he's not our guy."

"Anything else?" Van Buren said.

"It's gotta be someone like him, Lieutenant," Cassady said. "You should've seen this guy. It looked like the Hulk had been working him over."

Green said, "We did get an ID on him, though. We lucked out; his prints were in the system. Name's Davis Trimmer."

"What for?"

"A couple of assaults," Green said. "Seems to be a couple of drunken brawls, from the police report."

"So maybe his latest brawl got out of hand," Van Buren said.

Green's phone rang. When he put it down, he said, "MEs' ready."

X X X X X

"Let me guess," Green said. "Cause of death was blunt force trauma."

The medical examiner, Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers, said, "You'd think, but no. If this guy was hit by anything other than a body part, I can't find any evidence of it -- except for a few incidental scrapes that probably happened when he hit the wall and the pavement."

"This was all done with someone's fists?" Cassady said, disbelievingly.

"No," Dr. Rodgers said. "Some of it was done with feet."

Green rolled his eyes. "Well, whoever did this, we're looking for someone pretty damn big. Trimmer's not the size of that muscleman in the O's cap, but he ain't short, either."

Putting a file away, Dr. Rodgers said, "Well, if they're big, they've got tiny hands and feet."

Frowning, Cassady said, "How tiny?"

"Well, hand and foot size isn't the most reliable factor, but unless they've got ridiculously small extremities I'd peg your perp for being no taller than five and a half feet tall. And that's the upper limit."

"Five and a half feet?" Cassady asked in disbelief. "That doesn't seem possible."

"Not necessarily," Green said. "I know some martial arts experts could probably do a number on people bigger than they are."

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Rodgers said, "But Mr. Trimmer's injuries seem to be far more than any karate expert would need to beat someone up or kill them."

"Thanks," Green said.

As they left the office, Cassady said, "So, do you want to take a look at Trimmer's apartment, or try to track his movements?"

"He's married," Green said. "We talk to the wife, maybe we'll figure out where he went."

X X X X X

Mrs. Trimmer opened the door as soon as Green and Cassady showed their badges. "I can't believe you got over here so fast," she said.

"What are you talking about?" Cassady asked.

"I just reported Dave missing an hour ago."

Cassady and Green looked at each other; they hated not to break the news right away, but sometimes you learned something when you didn't." Cassady said," When did you first notice he was missing?"

"When I woke up this morning," Mrs. Trimmer said.

"You didn't notice him not come home last night?"

"Last night was Dave's poker night, over at Mort Pulaski's. Sometimes he doesn't come home till one in the morning. But he always comes home."

"Where does he play poker?"

She frowned. "You're not going to get them in trouble, are you?"

"We're not the gambling police, Mrs. Trimmer."

Something in Detective Green's tone must have alerted her. "And you're not from Missing Persons, either, are you?"

Cassady said, "There's no easy way to tell you this, Mrs. Trimmer . . ."

X X X X X

"Mr. Pulaski?" Green said.

"That's me. What can I do for you?"

"You had a poker game here last night, right?"

"Um --"

"We're homicide," Cassady said. "We don't care how much money changed hands. We're trying to trace the movements of one of your regulars."

"Which one?" Pulaski said.

"Davis Trimmer."

"Is he --"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but he was killed last night," Green said.

"Damn. He was a good guy."

Green and Cassady looked at each other. "We understand he has a bit of a temper."

"Dave? Naah. Only when he gets drunk. And he doesn't do that anymore."

"Twelve-step group?" Green asked.

"Not as far as I know. He just got a bit of discipline. Doesn't have more than a couple of beers."

"So he didn't get angry last night?"

Pulaski said, "Wouldn't have even if he was still drinking heavily. He ended up the night's big winner and anyway he was sober when he walked out."

Green's cell phone rang; he excused himself. Cassady asked, "Anyone in your group especially short?"

Pulaski shook his head. "No."

"Any women?"

Pulaski laughed. "We're all married. We come here to get away from women for a night. No offense."

Green said, "Right." and flipped his phone shut. "Cassady?"

"Yeah?"

"We got another one."

"Thanks for your time, Mr. Pulaski," Cassady said.

X X X X X

The first one had been easy. Good, She didn't like challenges.

There was something inside her -- telling her to kill only at night. It felt like she should be killing something else, but she wasn't sure what. She ignored it, for the moment.

Men would do for now. Here came another one.

"Excuse me, sir," she asked. "Could you tell me where Handelman Street is?"


	2. Hunting Season

Dick Wolf, L Joss, Buffy.

And this is set in kind of a generic post-season 7 future. Not season 8 continuity.

X X X X X

Victim's name is Joe Chiang," the officer said when they got there. From the looks of things, he'd died the same way that Trimmer had, though they were going to have Rodgers give the body the once-over to make sure. "No one saw anything -- at least, no one we've talked to so far. We're canvassing the neighborhood just to be sure."

"How fresh is the body?" Cassady asked.

"Medical examiner said the body was still bleeding," the man said. "Couldn't have been dead more than hour, tops."

"What are you thinking?" Green asked Cassady.

"Nothing specific; just that it's one thing to beat the crap out of someone in the middle of the night, and something else to do it in broad daylight. Even assuming the medical examiner was way off, it's almost 10:30. Whoever this person is, they're either gutsy or completely insane."

"Probably both," Green said. "CSU find anything else?" he asked the officer.

"Chiang apparently got off a punch or two; he had something under his nails. It's being bagged and tagged and sent to processing now."

"Tell them to keep us informed," Cassady said.

"You think we got a serial killer?" the uniform asked.

Green grabbed the officer by the hand and led him into the alley where Chiang had been found. "Are you trying to get us on TV?" A small crowd was already gathering around the edge of the crime scene tape; while there wasn't anyone there with any visible cameras yet, that didn't really mean a whole lot these days. One stray comment could get picked up by a cell phone camera and stuck on the internet for all the world to see.

"Huh?"

Cassady said, "What he means, genius, is that if this is a serial killer, the public will know soon enough; there's no call to panic them." She looked over at Green. "Right?"

"Right," Green said. "Also, two victims isn't enough to build a pattern on."

"I understand," the officer said.

As they walked away, Cassady said, "Do you really think he understands?"

"I don't care if he understands, as long as he shuts up about it. People are going to find out about this soon enough, and we have enough to do without having to filter out calls from everyone who thinks they saw someone somewhere that might have been doing something suspicious to someone sometime."

Cassady nodded. "I get it. Still, though his timing stank, his question didn't. Are we thinking this might be a serial killer?"

"I'm not the expert," Green says. "DA usually has someone on call. I'll check."

X X X X X

"Any luck?" Buffy asked.

"Not yet," Willow responded. "This one's proving unusually hard to track, for some reason. I can't get a lock on her mind, which means I can't really pin down her location. I know she's somewhere in Manhattan, but that's about it."

"Well, poop," Buffy said. "Everyone else is accounted for, right?"

"Right. The ones who can leave the island, are off it; the ones who can't have had their signatures on my tracking spell changed. The only one who should be showing up as blue is the one we're trying to find." She waved a hand and a map of the island appeared in the air of the hotel room, above them. "That's you; that's Kennedy; and these are the other two. This blue area over here is where the other one should be."

"Unfortunately, the blue area covers about ten square city blocks."

"No one ever said the job would be easy."

"Because if they had, I would so very be filing a lawsuit right about now."

X X X X X

Jack McCoy's voice came through the phone. "No, Skoda's in California at the moment. And Olivet's not talking to me right now. Give me a second."

"You gotta know more shrinks than them, Jack," Green said.

"I do. But I haven't worked with anyone quite as much." Green could hear him snap his fingers. "I've got it. Do you know George Huang?"

"Huang, Huang . . . he's that FBI shrink who helps SVU, right?"

"Right. He knows a lot about serial killers, and if Donald Cragen trusts him then he has to be good. I'll give them a call and see if they can spare him for a few days."

"Thanks, Jack," Green said.

"No problem."

When he hung up the phone, he turned to Cassady, who was searching the computer. "Well?"

"Joseph Chiang isn't in the system,' she said. "So if there's a connection, it's not going to be there."

Van Buren walked by. "Anything?"

"Two people beaten to death by a Muppet," Cassady said. "I'm starting to think there's no connection --"

"But you're checking just to be sure." It wasn't a question.

"Of course. But Trimmer was 44, good-sized, European, and worked in construction, and Chiang was skinny, 23, Chinese, and is going for an M.A at Hudson University. One was killed at night, the other in broad daylight. About the only obvious thing they have in common is the way they were killed."

"And they're both guys, but I see your point," Green said. "C'mon. Let's swing by Chiang's, see if anything there links them together."

X X X X X

"Well, neither Mrs. Trimmer nor Morton Pulaski appear to have heard of Joe Chiang," Cassady said, putting down her phone. "Doesn't mean they're not lying, of course, but I really don't think they'd hold out if it meant finding out who killed Davis Trimmer."

"There're always reasons," Green said, parking the car. "But I'm thinking the same thing." As they got out, he looked up at the apartment building. "Pretty swanky digs for a grad student."

As they walked into the building, the man at the front desk -- balding, Hispanic, early '40s, uniformed up with a nametag that read "Orestes"-- said, "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," Green said. "Joe Chiang live here?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but our residents pay handsomely not to be disturbed --"

Green had heard this line, or variants of it, a thousand times since he'd joined Homicide, and he didn't see any reason to listen to whole spiel again. He interrupted it by pulling out his badge. "Disturb them. We're investigating a serious crime, here."

"Right," Orestes said. "The Chiangs live on the 7th floor. I think Mrs. Chiang is home now."

Green's phone rang as Orestes picked up the guard station phone. He got done before the guard did. "That was the ME. Chiang got enough of his attacker to make it testable for DNA; with any luck they'll be in the system. Otherwise, he died the same way Trimmer did: Beaten to death by someone's hands and feet. Her best guess is that it's the same someone who beat up Trimmer."

"Was there any doubt?" Cassady asked.

Orestes got off the phone and said, "Mrs. Chiang's waiting for you."

They went upstairs.

X X X X X

Hunting over for the day. Time to work.

Jenny felt her boss' eyes follow her across the room. Part of her -- a large part -- wanted to cut his head off or set him on fire. or just beat him to a pulp; but that wasn't smart, hunting so close to home.

Would have made her easy to catch. Not that she'd be easy to keep, any more; but the longer no one knew who she was, the more fun she could have.

X X X X X

"The light hasn't moved for a couple of hours," Willow said. "Want to see if we can track our lost Slayer down in person?"

"About damn time," Buffy said. "She must be going crazy by now, not knowing what's going on."


	3. You Could Make a Killing

uthor's Note: Per a suggestion in one of the reviews, I've changed the summary.,

And now, back to your regularly scheduled fic.

X X X X X

Green and Cassady's talk with Annelisa Chiang -- who turned out to be Joe's mother -- wasn't particularly productive, but it had to be done. She hadn't heard of Davis Trimmer or his wife, or Morton Pulaski, for that matter. He spent most of his time either in class, studying, or at church, didn't have a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, and though parents are sometimes the last to know, the quick search of Joe's room that Mrs. Chiang had let the two do hadn't revealed anything along those lines).

The search of the room hadn't given them any possible leads or connections to Davis Trimmer; the only slim lead they had was the possibility that they were connected through the church.

And that slim became none before they even got back to the two-seven. "No go. Mrs. Trimmer says that they're Catholics. They've never even heard of the church the Chiangs go to."

Green said, "So, it's looking like the uniform was right. We got ourselves a serial killer."

Van Buren greeted them with "Don't get comfy. Rodgers just called. She's ready for you."

X X X X X

As they walked into Rodgers' "operating room," Cassady said, "I was raised on TV and even I know you don't get DNA results back in two hours."

"No, that's still going to be a while," Rodgers said. "But we did find out a few things. One, it looked like there were some fingerprints on the victim's glasses that weren't his, so forensics is looking at them now to see if they're in the system."

"That's good," Green said. "And what's two?"

"While you're right, Detective Cassady -- TV shows DNA showing up way too fast -- it's an easier matter to determine blood type and gender. The blood type was A- -- a little over 6% of the population has that type, so it narrows the field down considerably. And it's definitely a woman."

Green said, "You sure it's not just that he was into rough sex?"

"The blood under the nails was as fresh as his own was, so even if he was into rough sex, it'd be his partner who probably killed him."

Looking down at Chiang's battered body, Cassady said, "No one likes it that rough."

"Amen," Green muttered.

X X X X X

"We've been walking around for two hours now, Will," Buffy said.

"Whining isn't going to find her for us any faster," Willow said in clipped tones.

Buffy blinked, then said. "Whoa. Not what I meant. I was going to ask if you wanted a rest."

Willow stopped, then said. "Yeah. Might be a good idea." There was a pizza place nearby; while Willow sat down, Buffy got them each a slice and a soda. "Thanks," Willow said, distractedly.

"Are we any closer?" Buffy asked, carefully. When Willow didn't answer, she asked again.

"What? Yeah, we are. Sorry; I'm still maintaining something of a fix on her location. Otherwise we;'ll have to start all over again." After sipping her soda, she said, "I have no idea what's so hard about finding this girl. She's there, but not completely."

"Interference?" Buffy asked. "I didn't think there were any major sources of magic in New York City."

"If that were the case, I wouldn't be able to find you, Kennedy, or the other girls. And you're as clear as fireworks at night. In this girls' case, it's the foggiest night of the year and the explosion is more like a fizzle. She's definitely a Slayer; there's just something different about her."

"Good different or bad different?" Buffy said, between mouthfuls of pizza.

"Different different. Not like any other Slayer, really." A slight frown, then, "But she reminds me of someone. Give me time."

They both finished off their food; Buffy said, "Ready?"

"Yeah. Ready."

X X X X X

A man approached Ed Green as he was looking over the reports for the third time, looking for connections he couldn't find between Davis Trimmer and Joe Chiang. They'd spent most of the afternoon seeing if anyone would have wanted to kill either man by himself, and had simply killed the other man as a decoy or distraction. They'd had no luck along those lines either. Chiang was cleaner than an operating room, and Trimmer's minor sins had long since been paid off, with the people he'd brawled with apparently holding no grudges. No one was having any affairs, either. No matter what road they took, so far they were ending up at a dead end."

"Detective Green?" came a pleasant voice. "I'm George Huang. Jack McCoy said you could use my help."

Green got up and shook Huang's hand. "Damn right we could. We're waiting on the forensics and so far neither my partner nor I have come up with any connections between our two victims, other than they're both men."

"May if I take a look?"

"Of course," Green said, gesturing for Huang to take his desk.

As Green stood up, Huang said, "May I make another suggestion?"

"Of course."

"You and your partner take a break. I know how much you want to catch the woman who's doing this, but take a little time to unwind and not think about the case."

Green began to protest, and Huang added, "You looked extremely frustrated when I got here -- and you greeted me quite enthusiastically. A break could give you a fresh look. Just take time for dinner. That should give me long enough to look over all the evidence and see if I can find something you missed."

Looking up, Green caught Van Buren's gaze; she nodded slightly, and Green said, "Good idea. We'll be back in an hour." If the lieutenant had shaken her head no, Green wouldn't have gone.

He caught Cassady on his way out, and they went out to eat.

X X X X X

It was late in the afternoon -- just work, all day, nothing else, except for her lunch break-- when, while she was checking the brake fluid on a 1998 Suzuki, Jenny felt her boss tapping her on the shoulder. She whirled around -- she really didn't like to be touched, and everyone knew it -- and Paul backed away. "Whoa. Sorry about that, Jen. I tried callin' you, but you were so wrapped up you couldn't hear."

Once again the fantasy of picking up one of the nearby tire irons and bringing it down on his skull crossed her mind, but no. Even if she did kill Paul, it wouldn't be here and it wouldn't now. Too many witnesses. "That's okay. What is it, Paul?"

"Two people here to see you."

She didn't know anyone who might want to see her, not anymore. Her mother was dead, and her father had tried to have her tried as an adult when she'd killed that boy years back. "They say why?"

"Just that they had personal business. Try to keep it short."

And so, Jenny met Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg -- and found out why she was strong.

She was a Slayer.

Loved the name. _Loved_ it.

X X X X X

She was meeting Buffy and Willow in the Jewish cemetery over a couple of blocks in an hour or so, where they were going to introduce her to the things she was _supposed_ to be killing. Sounded fun, as long as it didn't get in the way.

Plenty of time.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you know where I can find Handelman Street?"

X X X X X

They'd been back from dinner for an hour or so; Huang had disappeared into a spare office. The only news they'd gotten was that the fingerprints on Joe Chiang's glasses didn't match any on file -- but they weren't his, either.

Van Buren came out of her office. "We have another victim. We also have a little good news this time."

"He's still alive?" Cassady asked, hopefully.

"No. But we do have a witness."


	4. Strong Enough

They got to the scene about twenty minutes later. The officer at the scene, said, "Vic's name is Alejandro Dominguez. Near as we can tell he's been dead even shorter than Chiang was this morning -- thanks to our witness over there."

The officer pointed, and Green and Cassady looked up and saw a young black woman, maybe 23 or so. "She's a little drunk," he said.

"How 'little drunk'?" Green asked skeptically.

The officer caught the tone and said, "Sober enough to realize what was going on, stay out of sight, and call us as soon as she could. Jefferson's over there giving her a Breathalyzer test just to be sure we're not wastin' our time."

"Smart," Cassady said.

"Yeah," Green said. And it was. If the young woman was blowing a .030, any defense attorney worth the paper their law degree was printed on could get reasonable doubt out of it. "Anything else?"

"CSU got here two minutes before you did. They have anything, I'll point them in your direction. We're canvassing the area to see if anyone else saw anything, but nothing so far."

"Thanks," Green said.

The witness in question turned out to be one Mara Scott, a 25-year old woman getting off celebrating a big promotion. Officer Jefferson pulled Green aside while Cassady started talking with her. She'd blown a .013. Drunk, but nowhere near out of it. This was, to some extent, good news.

"I know you've already been over this –" Cassady began.

Shaking her head, the young woman said. "It's okay. I'll tell it as many times as I have to." She might be drunk, but she was rapidly sobering up. Traumatic events could do that, sometimes.

"Start at the beginning," Cassady said.

"Okay. Well, my friends dropped me off at the corner and I was walking home – that's it, there – she pointed to a walk-up a couple of buildings down – "when I heard fighting from that alley over there." Which was where they'd found Dominguez' body, of course. It was easily near enough to see, and the alley was fairly well lit, for that matter. "I looked over to see what was going on and saw a woman beating the crap out of that guy over there. I ducked behind the car – didn't want her to see me, you know?"

"Of course. Please describe the woman," Cassady said as Green joined her.

"Okay. Well, she was white – shorter than the guy, anyway, by a head or so – and she had fairly long, kind of wavy hair. Light, too, you know? Not white blonde, but definitely blonde-ish. Kind of skinny – and she was wearing some kind of uniform."

Green and Cassady looked at each other. "Uniform? You mean like a police officer?" Green asked.

Scott said, "No. The thing was dark, though – but it wasn't the right style to be a cop's uniform, you know?"

"We see. Anything else you can tell us about her?"

"She had serious fighting skills. I mean, the dude over there was bigger than she was all the way around, you know?" Dominguez was built like Trimmer – only with muscles instead of a paunch, He wasn't like the weightlifter type who'd found Trimmer, but he was definitely in shape. "And he was barely laying a hand on her, you know? I think he maybe hit her two-three times while I watched. It was almost like she was dancing. Then, when he was leaning against the wall, she checked her watch – like she had somewhere to be – and then kicked him in the head. It was like she was Xena, you know? And then the man hit the pavement, and the woman ran off. That way." She pointed left. "I didn't see where she went. Once I knew she was gone, I called 911."

"Thanks," Green said. "You think you could work with our sketch artist?"

"I'll try," Scott said. "It was dark and across the street, but I'll do what I can."

"Thank you very much, Miss Scott," Cassady said. "You've been a lot of help." He gestured for one of the uniforms to come over and told her to escort the young woman down to the station.

Any doubts now that we've got a serial killer?" Cassady asked.

"None. Which means this is about to get a whole lot bigger."

X X X X X

When Jenny showed up, she was still in her work uniform. "We said it might be a good idea to change into something looser," Buffy said, frowning. She had been waiting no more than five minutes; Willow was spending some time with Kennedy, and relaxing after what had been a much more draining spell than she'd expected. This was an active graveyard. New York had a lot of older ones that had long since filled in their quote of bodies; any vampires who'd come from those bodies were long gone.

And she hadn't picked this one by chance; she and Willow had done a little research. There were a couple of rookies due to pop out of the ground here tonight. They were probably awake now and starting to dig their way out.

"I can move in this," Jenny said. "And it's already dirty, anyway."

Buffy shrugged. She'd learn. Or not, but Buffy much preferred the former. "Come with me," she said, and they made their way closer to the targeted graves, which fortunately were within a hundred feet or so of each other. "Do you have any questions?" She and Willow had given her a five-minute summary of Giles' "the world is older than we know" speech, and the only response Jenny had given at the time was an enthusiastic grin and a "that explains a lot."

It had sounded nothing like Oz, despite echoing his words. Still, it was nice to some extent to not have to spend hours convincing a girl, or her parents, for that matter. By Jenny's own account, her father wasn't part of her life – Buffy knew that experience far too well – and her mother was dead, so any choices were Jenny's, and hers alone.

Tomorrow, Willow would be looking up info on Jenny, to avoid any nasty surprises, but for now, it was time for what Xander called "Introduction to Vampire Slaying 102." First, she ran through the common methods of killing a vampire – then, the myths about them. Jenny absorbed all of this without saying a word. "Do you have any training in how to fight?" Buffy asked when she was done.

"Self-defense course. And I've been working out a bit as well, to try to work off some of this energy."

Buffy nodded. "Good." They'd reached the first gravesite. "Okay," Buffy said quietly, "Stop moving. What do you feel?"

"Dirt beneath my feet," was her reply.

Snorting, Buffy said. "Not literally."

Jenny closed her eyes, opened then ten seconds later, and said, "Not much, really. A vague sense that something's wrong here, but that's it."

"Try again. And take more than ten seconds." While she was talking, Buffy was keeping an eye on both graves, just in case one of the rookies was feeling energetic. So far, no go.

After a minute, Jenny said, "Nothing but that vague sense. I've felt it a few times since I became strong – but I could never figure out what. Some dreams I barely remembered. Nothing else."

"That's okay," Buffy said. "It takes some people a while to feel it – and some never do, that strongly." Still, a "vague sense" was definitely towards the low end of the totem pole.

"Feel what?"

Right then, as if on cue, the vampire who used to be Benjamin Everett sprung out of the ground. "That," Buffy said. "That's what you're here to fight," and, throwing her a stake, stepped back.

X X X X X

Feel something?

Not really. Just enough to make Jenny believe something was going on – beyond the clear memory of the voice asking her whether she was ready to be strong.

That, and the dreams, which now made sense, though she still couldn't remember more than bits and pieces. She never could, not with any of her dreams.

She looked up at the distorted features of the man – vampire, technically, but man was the important part – and saw him coming towards her, hungrily.

He never got there. Jenny hit him several times before he could even start to attack her.

Finally, the man connected. Hit her in the shoulder. "Ow!" She said. Hurt worse than anything any of the three men she'd killed so far had done.

And he'd touched her. She couldn't allow that.

A couple of minutes later, she had the man down on the ground and was pounding him as hard as she could. "Jenny!" She heard Buffy yell.

"What?" she said.

"We don't usually torture them. Killing is enough."

Well, she knew what to do with the stake, but she hated ending things this soon. Still, Buffy was watching her. Better to be safe.

She plunged the stake into his heart and sprawled to the ground when he collapsed into dust.

Wasn't as much fun as beating them to death, but it would have to do. Buffy came over and pulled her to her feet, and then said, "You sure it was just a basic course?"

"Yeah. Why?" They walked towards another grave.

"Because those were some pretty good moves. You've got an instinct for the combat side of this. Next time, though, remember. We're here to kill them, not hurt them. You missed several chances to kill him early." Then she smiled slightly. "But overall, not bad. You'll learn."

Yes. Yes she would.


	5. Suspicious Minds

Author's note: The description of Jenny is based off of a recent photo of the actress who played her in the L&O episode this is based on, Hallee Hirsh. The height is taken from IMDB.

Dick Wolf created Law & Order -- and SVU, for that matter, where George Huang comes from. Joss created the Buffy characters. So far, I've created only the victims, their families, and the witness.

And the storyline.

X X X X X

CSU hadn't had anything concrete by the time Green and Cassady left the scene, and canvassing the area hadn't gotten anyone else to admit to having seen anything, When they got back to the two-seven, Mara Scott was talking with the sketch artist, and George Huang was waiting for them. They quickly described what the witness had told them.

"And then she looked at her watch and killed him with the next blow -- what?" Green asked.

"That's very interesting -- that she looked at her watch, I mean."

"Maybe she had someplace to be."

"Oh, I'm sure about that. But she killed her victim with the next blow. It's as though she was simply toying with him, like a cat does to a mouse. If she'd simply wanted to kill these men, she certainly could have done it a lot sooner -- at least, based on the medical reports I saw about the first two victims. I've seen boxers at the end of championship matches who had fewer bruises. She's inflicting all of these injuries for a reason."

"And what reason would that be?" Cassady asked.

"If I had to hypothesize, I'd say that she feels the men deserve to be punished -- but that she's enjoying what she's doing," Huang said.

Green said, "Any idea why she's targeting the men she is, yet?"

"No. So far, I haven't found any more connections than you two have, Once I get the complete report on Mr. Dominguez, I'll let you know." He started to walk away, then said, "One more thing. Female serial killers are more common than the public usually thinks -- but most women tend to use -- less violent methods. Suffocation. Poison. Not beatings. This is a decidedly unusual case. I would treat this woman as extremely dangerous."

"She's killed three men who were all taller than she was -- two of whom were definitely heavier than she was, and had some kind of muscle power," Green said.

"She's average height and she's thin, assuming we can trust your witness' description. I'd say she's used to being underestimated."

"We'll definitely keep that in mind."

X X X X X

After she walked Jenny back to her apartment, Buffy headed back to the hotel she, Willow and Kennedy were staying at.

Jenny had done somewhat better on her second vampire -- at least, she'd killed her faster, and without beating her, as Giles had once said to her about another vamp, "into quite a bloody pulp." Then they'd patrolled the general vicinity for a couple of hours. They'd run across a couple of demons, which gave Buffy an excuse to drum into Jenny's head that not all demons were monsters who needed to be killed on sight.

They'd been a friendly pair of Burchells', out for a midnight stroll, not hurting anyone. Burchells' could; Buffy had dealt with more than a few of them in her time. But these two weren't.

Jenny had seemed disappointed.

Buffy wasn't quite sure what she thought about their newest addition. She was a natural at fighting -- no hesitation, no nervousness at all. Hell, she'd had it easier than Buffy had.

But she'd shown no emotion at all, the entire way around -- except for when she was pounding the first vampire. She'd seemed to enjoy that.

Enjoying fighting was one thing. Most of the Slayers did, on some level.

But it had seemed like she was enjoying the pain.

She wouldn't be the first who'd enjoyed working out her anger by pounding on vampires. But still, something to keep an eye on, definitely. You couldn't push that too far, or you'd end up enjoying violence for it's own sake --

Like Faith had, way back when.

When she got back to her room at the hotel, there was a note on the bed. "Come on over. No matter when you get back."

Willow's handwriting.

Buffy knocked on the door connecting their rooms -- she wasn't going to burst in for any reason short of an impending apocalypse. She'd made that mistake once, and once was, believe you her, more than enough.

But it wasn't Willow who answered. Instead, Kennedy opened the door quietly, gestured for Buffy to move back, and stepped into the room.

"She's asleep," Kennedy said after closing the door. "And given the day she had –"

"Yeah. Let her sleep," Buffy said. This wasn't a screaming emergency.

"She still wanted me to wake her up when you got back, regardless," Kennedy said. "I'll take the heat for that tomorrow morning." Then she said, "So how'd it go tonight?" Buffy gave her a five-minute summary. "Yeah, that'd bother me too. And with what Willow found –"

"What did Willow find?" Buffy and Kennedy might be destined to never be the best of friends, but she knew the other Slayer wasn't holding out for dramatic effect or to piss Buffy off. Not when it came to business.

"I wouldn't let her go too long, but she did some digging on 'Jennifer Brandt' and found something: She disappeared from the public records about seven years ago."

"Disappeared?"

"Yeah. Her mom still lived in the area – until she died last year. If we're assuming our girl's not lying about who she is, that leaves a damn big gap. And you know what causes a gap like that?"

Joyce Summers had raised no fools. "She was locked up somewhere."

"That was our guess, too," Kennedy said. "We hadn't found anything else by the time I made her stop, but she's going to get back on it first thing in the morning. Just wanted you to know. And that with what you saw out of her –"

"Definitely something to be concerned about."

"Oh yeah."

X X X X X

She could only sleep for a few hours. Buffy had said that Slayers needed less sleep and healed faster, so that was part of it; but the adrenaline was probably part of it.

Now there were men she got to kill, and could get away with it. That should have been enough, Jenny supposed, but it really wasn't.

It was another way to use the strength, of course; and she'd take advantage of it. She'd prefer to only kill the men, of course, but if the women vampires were part of it, then she had no problem with that.

Still. It wasn't enough. Buffy and Willow had been wrong.

Killing those creatures why wasn't she was strong. It might be why they thought she was strong, but that was just a fringe benefit.

No. She'd been chosen for something else entirely. She knew why, even if they didn't, and never would.

Swinging out of bed, she grabbed her work uniform (to throw out), her spare work uniform, and headed out.

Time to hunt.

X X X X X

"Excuse me, sir. Do you know where Handelman Street is?"

X X X X X

They'd only been able to get a few hours of sleep, after Mara Scott had finished her sketch and she and Huang, and Rodgers for that matter, had gone home. The sketch hadn't been particularly detailed; the young woman had an oval face, shoulder-length wavy hair (light brown), and no scars or other blemishes. Still, it was more than they'd had before. It had gone out to the DA's office, every precinct in the city, the nearby county sheriff's offices and the state police of New York and New Jersey.

They'd had no better luck on the uniform; "dark blue" could have been any number of different jobs. Still, like the sketch Mara Scott had provided them, it was better than the nothing they'd been working with so far. When Cassady had suggested to forensics that they run the description through some kind of national uniform database, they stared at her like she'd gone insane and then implied strongly that she'd been watching too much _CSI_.

That was when they'd sacked out in the beds available in every station for round-the-clock situations like this one, realizing that they desperately needed sleep.

Morning brought them no new leads. Van Buren had woken them up primarily to let them know that there was going to be a press conference at 9 that morning; the chain of murders was starting to excite the public, and a formal statement needed to be made. While the lieutenant was talking, Cassady's phone rang.

"Terrific," Green grumbled. "All the crazies're gonna start coming out of the woodwork."

"Don't worry about that," Van Buren said. "Just stop this bitch before she kills someone else."

Cassady put down her phone. "Too late."

X X X X X

Early that morning, ADA Jack McCoy was paging through an assortment of briefs and memos when something caught his eye.

It was a picture of the young woman the police suspected of having beaten those three men to death.

It looked familiar.

Holy shit.

Jenny Brandt. It had to be.

God damn it to hell. He'd told them so.

_He'd told them so._


	6. Who Do People Say That I Am?

The next morning there was a loud argument in the next room, which ended with one of the participants storming out a couple of seconds previously, and as Buffy heard curses in Spanish fading out down the hall, she assumed that it was Kennedy for the moment. She'd been right to let Willow sleep, and Willow would figure that out, eventually.

Assumption proved when Willow came through the suite connectors a minute or so afterwards. "Do you know --"

"I know," Buffy said. "She told me what you found."

"Did she tell you that that knowing she was off the radar for seven years worries me?" Willow said. "Kids don't go away for seven years for pranks. I need to do some more digging, oh, and one more thing, as I was falling asleep I remembered who she reminded me of."

"And then you forgot again."

"Yeah. Damn sleep. Who invented it, anyway?"

"Okay, then," Buffy said. "Let's think about this logically." Willow looked at her skeptically. "What? I'm perfectly capable of thinking logically."

"I didn't say anything." Buffy just glared. "Okay. What do you have?"

"What reminded you of -- whoever it reminded you of? And try to avoid magicbabble."

"I do not magicbabble."

"Please! You're like an engineer from Star Trek, only with less warp drives and more marnox root. Anyway --"

"Right. Well, it was as much the difficulty as the -- well, the feel of her, when we were looking and even after we found her."

"Okay. Who else has been hard to find?" Buffy asked.

"Usually people that were near or on some major source of magical activity -- remember the ones in Cleveland we had such a hard time locating? And Penda, who lived not far from that ancient demonic graveyard? That."

"But there's no magical interference like that in New York. You said so yourself."

Willow sighed." I know. Which only leaves Jenny as the source of the interference."

Thinking, Buffy said, "Well, how does the spell track them? I mean, by what? The essence of Slayerness?"

Willow said, "Close enough. With the spell I'm using, slayers' minds have a distinct signature when it comes to looking for magical beings. So do all beings, for that matter, but I'm not tracking them."

"Any chance Jenny could be partly nonhuman?"

"No," Willow said. "I may not be as up on my Watcher history as Giles is, but Slayerness is restricted to – um – pure humans. Not that that makes us better than some of the demons – just different."

"Okay. So the interference comes from Jenny's mind and she's not a magical being. So –"

"So there's something wrong with her mind."

Buffy said, "Hmm. She didn't seem to have much Slayer instinct yesterday, except when it came to fighting. If I'd had to wait this long after being activated for someone to clue me in as to what the hell was going on, I think I would have gone crazy. Jenny, not really. And she clearly hadn't been slaying on her own – she didn't know at all about vampires before we told her." After a second, when there was no response, she said, "Will? You there?"

"Hold on." Willow was clearly deep in concentration.

"Holding," Buffy said, knowing better than to interrupt Willow when she was like this.

Willow said, "Damn." It wasn't a damn of frustration; it was a damn of recognition. "Damn it. I know who she reminds me of."

"Who?"

"It was when you said crazy that I thought about it, and now that I review their 'signatures,' I'm kicking myself for not having figured it out sooner.

"Who?" Buffy repeated more forcefully.

"Buffy, think about it. Crazy. That's who Jenny reminds me of."

Buffy's finally figured it out. "Dana." Dana, who'd broken out of a mental institution in LA, scattering bodies in her wake.

"Yeah."

"This isn't good."

"You think?"

X X X X X

"Tell me some good news," Green said as he and Cassady walked to the fourth crime scene.

"My kid just made the honor society," the officer said who was escorting them.

"Nice. Now tell me something useful." Green said.

It rolled off the officer, but he did get down to business. "No witnesses this time, no fingerprints, and nothing under the vic's nails, either. We got people canvassing the area, but nothing so far."

"I told you I wanted good news."

"That's why I mentioned my kid," the officer said as he handed them off to CSU.

"Anything?" Cassady said.

"His name's Zachary Nixon," the CSU tech said. "He's been dead maybe two, three hours. And if he wasn't killed the same way the other victims were, I'll eat my hat. We got some blood spatter; probably his from one of the dozen times or so she struck him in the face, but we'll run it through the system anyway."

"How big is he?" Green asked.

"Six feet, six inches," the tech said. Zachary Nixon was, if anything, even in better shape than Dominguez had been.

"I think we've finally found a pattern," Cassady muttered. "Her targets are getting taller and buffer."

"She doesn't have much further up to go," Green said. "Unless she starts targeting the Knicks."

"You sure we should stop her?" Cassady said.

"Detectives!" One of the uniforms said. "We got someone." They left the taped-off area of the crime scene and found themselves faced with a somewhat annoyed-looking gray-haired white man. Why he was annoyed, Green didn't know and didn't care as long as they could help the police track down this killer. "This is Albert Dunn."

"You saw something, Mr. Dunn?"

"No." Just as Green was about to ask the man why the hell he was here, he said, "But I did hear something. Sounded like a fight, right around 5:30 this morning." Cassady checked her watch; that was a bit over two hours, right in the wheelhouse of when CSU said Zachary Nixon was being killed.

"I live right up there," Dunn continued. He pointed to the building to the left side of the alley. "Fourth floor. Had the window open and hearin' someone get the shit kicked out of them woke me up."

"Why didn't you call us?" Green asked.

"I would've if I'd known that was goin' on," Dunn said, gesturing to where CSU was putting Mr. Nixon in a body bag. 'I just thought it was two people beatin' the crap out of each other. I ain't dumb enough to get involved in somethin' like that."

"Go on," Cassady said, through clenched teeth.

"Well, like I said, I didn't see no one. But right as I was startin' to close the window I heard a girl's voice –"

"Girl?" Green asked.

"Excuse me for not being PC. Young woman. I couldn't see her, how the hell do I know how old she was? Anyway, I heard the girl say somethin' like, 'Now that's what bein' a Slayer is all about."

Green and Cassady looked at each other. "You sure?" Cassady finally asked. "Emphasizing Slayer like that?"

"I'm old, girl, not deaf."

Green asked "Did you hear anything else?"

"Someone smashin' into a wall. Then I shut the window and went back to sleep. Woke up when you folks knocked on my door. Barely gave me time to get on my shoes. Haven't even had time to take a leak yet."

Well, that explained why Mr. Dunn was annoyed, at least. "Officer Jefferson?" He came over and Green said, "Escort Mr. Dunn back to his apartment with all deliberate speed, wait until he's done, and then bring him down to the station for a formal statement." To Albert Dunn: "Thank you, sir. You've been a big help." But by this point he was already hot-footing it back to the building, leaving a startled Officer Jefferson scrambling after him.

Cassady and Green started walking away. "A slayer?" Green asked.

"Well, she wasn't wrong; but if Mr. Dunn was right about the way she stressed it, it seemed to mean something to her. Wish I knew what, though."

"You and me both."

X X X X X

Another day of work.

More hunting tonight.

Both kinds, she hoped.

X X X X X

Jack McCoy knocked on Anita Van Buren's office door about fifteen minutes before the press conference, and had walked in before her "Come in" was half out. "I know who your killer is."

"Good morning, Jack," Van Buren said pointedly "Won't you come in?" She stood up and closed the door behind him. McCoy clearly looked agitated, and whatever had gotten him so upset was none of the rest of the two-seven's business. Not even Green and Cassady, who'd just gotten back from this morning's crime scene. An NYPD official spokesperson was out there talking to them now.

"Which killer?" was Van Buren's first question. "We have four open cases at the moment."

McCoy frowned at her. "This is no time to be cute, Anita. I know who's been beating those men to death." A beat, then: "It's Jenny Brandt."

The same sounded disturbingly familiar to Van Buren, but she couldn't place it off the top of her head. "Jenny Brandt?"

"The girl who killed the boy and then stuffed a battery in his mouth. I did some checking. She turned 18 about six months ago and was released." He took his copy of the sketch and showed it to Van Buren. "Tell me that isn't her, seven years on."

She looked at the picture. "I suppose it could be," she said, somewhat skeptically. "But you have to remember, Jack, it's been seven years, and our only witness saw her from across a street at night. A well-lit street, true, but still –" Something occurred to her. "And aren't the records sealed now that she's an adult?"

"The records may be sealed, Anita, but my memory isn't."

"Your memory's not enough for an arrest warrant, Jack. You should know that. And while we have DNA and two good fingerprints we can't compare them to a record we're not allowed into. That, you definitely know."

Frustratedly, McCoy said, "It is her, Anita. I'm sure of it." Calming down, he said. "Would you at least have Cassady and Green check into her? Is my memory worth that much to you?"

"Yeah," Van Buren said. "It is. At this point, we can use any sane lead we can get." She looked out and saw the spokesperson gesturing towards her. "Because in about ten minutes, we're going to be buried in insane ones."

X X X X X

Buffy, Willow and Kennedy would have been very interested in one particular question posed at the press conference:

"What does she call herself?" It was the representative from the New York Post. (Motto, per Tony Kornheiser: "We occasionally print in English.")

"If you're asking what her name is, we don't know that any more than you do," Van Buren said.

The spokesperson added, "But she seems to call herself the Slayer."

They would have been very interested to hear this.

If they'd been listening.


	7. Trail of Blood

Disclaimer: Buffy was created by Joss Whedon, Law & Order by Dick Wolf, and the storyline by me.

X X X X X

In the break room of Paul Browne's Auto Repair, Jenny Brandt was taking her lunch. It had been a good day so far; one oil change, and she'd helped replace the brake system on an old Geo Tracker. She enjoyed this -- putting things together, taking them apart. She should probably thank her shop teacher from juvie -- what was his name again?

No matter. Almost feeling gratitude for the man probably was going to save his life.

The TV was on, and it was going from The Price Is Right to the local news.

"And in our top story today," the smug-looking anchorman said, "New York City Police held a press conference today on the latest serial killer to menace the city -- and this one's female." Her coworker, Jose, the only other one in the break room with her, leaned forward to turn up the volume. If he hadn't, she would have.

They cut to a shot of a middle-aged woman holding up a sketch -- the caption read, Lt. Anita Van Buren -- and the screen split, showing the sketch.

It looked liked her. Not exactly like her, not enough to be her relative, but enough that she needed to start being careful.

". . . men," Lt. Van Buren said. "She was also seen wearing a dark-colored uniform -- possibly blue." She still had her other uniform in her locker. She needed to throw it out as soon as possible -- and she'd need to take a roundabout way of getting there. She owned both her uniforms; part of the cost of joining the shop. The one she had on, she'd need to be careful about. No more wearing it during attacks.

"Looks a little like you, Jenny," Jose said. "'specially with that uniform."

Forcing a laugh, Jenny said, "Yeah. You'd better watch out, or you might be next." Jose would be last, of all the men working here. He didn't think of her as being a woman. That bought him a little bit of consideration.

Jose laughed, Just like she'd intended.

Another woman, this one younger, said, "She seems to call herself the Slayer."

Not the Slayer; a Slayer.

But what did you expect from local news?

She threw her soda can in the trash and headed to the locker to get her spare uniform. The time to toss it was now.

X X X X X

Kennedy came back mid-morning, having gotten in a fight with a couple of random demons in an abandoned building a few blocks from the hotel and seeming none the worse for wear. Buffy'd volunteered to leave, but Kennedy told her not to bother. She sat down next to Willow and the two began a brief, intense conversation, which ended in a hug, a kiss, and Willow getting back to work while Kennedy headed to the shower to clean off.

So Buffy kept keeping Willow company while she researched -- okay, Buffy was mostly watching TV, but she had answered a few serious questions.

And, honestly, she wasn't really watching TV so much as using reruns of Dharma & Greg as a backdrop for her own thoughts. What could Jenny have done? Could she have committed a crime? Been in a mental hospital? Attended Hogwarts? (Okay, the last one she didn't really believe.)

Speculation, yeah, but it was all she could do -- that, and hope they didn't have another Dana on their hands. (Dana was better than she'd been, but she would never really be okay. She hadn't severely injured anyone in at least three months, though, and Buffy supposed that was improvement.)

Willow had gotten Giles to get someone to send her electronic copies of a handful of spell books -- "Text only," she'd stressed, as though anyone to this day had forgotten Malcolm, er, Moloch -- and was researching more thoroughly the effects and auras of the tracking spell they'd been using.

After an hour or so of no conversation -- the last half of which she'd spent with Kennedy witting next to her -- the boredom was starting to get to her.

So Buffy tired to get Willow's attention, and after a couple of attempts, eventually caught it and said "Do you need me for anything else?"

"Huh? No, you've done what you can. I've got the spell and then some hacking."

"Okay. I'm going to go do some investigating on my own. Kennedy, wanna come with?"

A bit startled, Kennedy said, "Willow? Do you need me?"

"Quite often," was Willow's reply. "But not right this second. Go with Buffy if you want."

They left, heading for Paul Browne's Auto Repair. "So, why did you want me along?" Kennedy asked when they were almost there.

"Three reasons. One, you'd get as bored sitting around watching Willow as I would. Two, a fresh mind never hurts, and you've never met Jenny. Maybe you'll see something we missed. Three, two Slayers are better than one."

They got maybe half a block away from the shop when Buffy held out a hand to stop Kennedy. "There she is." Jenny was leaving the shop, carrying something under her arm.

"Want to ask questions or see where she goes?" Kennedy asked.

"What is this, _Buffy Summers, PI_? We talk to her coworkers, they'll tell her, and she'll get suspicious."

"And she won't get suspicious if she sees us tailing her?"

"I have a plan for that."

"Really?" Kennedy asked skeptically.

"Yes. Really. We'll say we're testing her out. She's new to the Slayer gig; how will she know we're lying?" Jenny was zooming along, now, and Buffy and Kennedy had to speed up to make sure they kept pace. The streets were crowded, but not horrendously so, so it wasn't too difficult keeping sight of her.

Then she rounded the corner into an alley. "Okay. Here's where it gets tricky," Buffy said. By the time they got to the end of the alley, Jenny was just finishing tossing something into a dumpster, and whatever she was carrying was nowhere to be seen.

"That's odd," Buffy said.

"Obviously she wanted whatever it was to stay hidden."

"Yeah, but why?" Jenny had made it to the far end of the alley now and had disappeared out of sight.

Kennedy asked, "Are we going to follow her?"

"Right now, I'd like to know what she thought was so important she had to dump it." They reached the dumpster. "Boost me over the edge." The dumpster was taller than she was, and while she could have easily jumped into it, no way was she going to do that unless she had to – and certainly not without seeing what she'd be landing on.

Kennedy effortlessly lifted her so she could peer over the edge. "A little more –" she said, and reached down and picked up what seemed to be one of Jenny's spare work uniforms. Stained and dirty, yeah, but not so bad it needed to be tossed. "Get me down."

"What the hell?" Kennedy asked.

"My thoughts exactly," Buffy replied, looking at the uniform.

"Buffy," Kennedy said. "Look." She turned the uniform so they could both see the side Kennedy was seeing, and Kennedy pointed to several spots on the top of the uniform that didn't quite match the grease and other automotive fluid stains. "That's blood."

"Probably. Let's get away from the dumpster so we can tell a little better." When they got to the far end of the alley – Jenny was long gone by this point – Buffy and then Kennedy took a whiff of it. No, Slayers weren't vampires, but their senses were somewhat heightened, and Buffy had been around blood for years, certainly long enough to recognize it by the smell, even with all those other automotive fluids there as well.

It was blood, all right. "It could be hers, I suppose," Buffy said doubtfully. "She does work at a place where it wouldn't be that hard to get injured."

"You don't believe that," Kennedy said.

Buffy sighed. "No. I don't. But there's only one way we have to find out."

They headed back to the hotel.

X X X X X

Cassady, Green, Van Buren and Huang talked for a bit after the press conference. Green knew those things exhausted the lieutenant; she never liked talking to the press.

Huang spoke first. "I've found a pattern. It was Detective Green who pointed it out – the killer's victims are getting more and more physically fit."

"She doesn't have much more physically fit to go, unless she starts taking on pro wrestlers," Van Buren said. "Mr. Nixon was pretty solid."

"I know. And that has me concerned," Huang said. "Even if she finds someone else, it's likely that her need to prove herself will lead her to find even

"How do you find a more severe challenge than someone muscular as Nixon was?" Cassady asked.

"A muscleman with martial arts training."

"Two musclemen," Green said.

Huang nodded. "Quite possibly. Or someone even more dangerous. Someone armed."

"At this point, I'm not so sure that would be a bad thing," Cassady said.

"I understand the sentiment," Van Buren said. "Don't voice it again, understood?"

"Understood," Cassady said.

"I certainly wouldn't rely on one of her victims stopping her. Not with what we've seen so far. Also," Huang added, "somewhere inside her there is quite possibly an intense hatred for men – since being male seems to be the only thing specifically connecting her victims. Be very careful of this, should you ever have to approach her."

"Thank you, Doctor," Van Buren said.

"You're quite welcome," the psychiatrist responded. "If I could take these files with me, I'll see if I can come up with anything else." He left the discussion.

"I'm assuming you two haven't come up with anything else?" Van Buren asked

"We worked the connection angle for a bit and talked to forensics and Rodgers," Green said. "No luck on the connections, still. If any of these four knew each other, no one in any of their lives knows about it."

"I think we've covered that base thoroughly enough," Van Buren said. "And the physical side of things?"

"Rodgers pretty much confirmed for this vic what she confirmed for the other one," Green said. "Beaten to death by someone with small hands and feet. She broke his nose and his jaw before finishing him off by snapping his neck. By the end of it he couldn't have fought back if he'd wanted to."

"The spatter was all the victim's blood, too. Maybe the killer got some on her clothes, but we'd need to find them to be sure," Cassady said.

"I have a possible lead. Actually, Jack McCoy brought it to me."

"McCoy?" Green asked.

"Yeah. He thinks he recognized the sketch of our killer."

Cassady snorted. "Him and half of Manhattan."

"True. But it's at least worth a look. Ed, you might remember this one. Jenny Brandt."

Green took a copy of the sketch from his desk, looked at for maybe half a minute, and said, "Right. I can see that."

"Jenny Brandt?" Cassady asked.

"Child killer," Green said. "Little psychopath murdered a little boy and got away with it because her mother and Olivet convinced some family court judge that she was too young to understand her actions. This from a girl who'd killed a cat and thought it was cool. She knew damn well what she was doing. She certainly had an intense dislike for men of all sorts, so it fits Huang's profile." To Van Buren, he said, "I don't suppose he brought any evidence?"

"Nothing but his instinct, which is good enough for me to at least have you investigate her," the lieutenant said. "He was more agitated than I've seen him in a long while. Jack can be passionate, but you know how it sticks in his craw, something like this."

"Yeah. I do." After a second, Green said, "Did he have any idea where we could find her?"

"No, but you can't expect him to do your entire job for you," Van Buren said. "Try the phone book."

X X X X X

People were looking for her, now. Or at least someone who looked like her.

Made this more of a challenge.

Cool.


End file.
